Under the Penal Laws in the United Kingdoms, which at that time included the whole island of Ireland, the Test Acts precluded all those who did not take communion in the established Church of England from holding public office. In Ireland, the Acts are remembered primarily for their discrimination against Catholics, but in England, Scotland, and Wales, where they also applied, the discrimination targeted Presbytarians, Baptists, Atheists, and other non-Anglicans alike. To hold any public office, one had to publicly affirm the following oath:
I, N, do declare that I do believe that there is not any transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, or in the elements of the bread and wine, at or after the consecration thereof by any person whatsoever.
The Test Acts were well named: They set a test. To be welcome in official society, one had to affirm one’s beliefs about the non-existence of transubstantiation. Failure to do so meant you were out.
The Test Acts crossed my mind yesterday when thinking about the case of Kellie Harrington: Olympic Medallist, Working Class Heroine, Role model, and, according to Fianna Fáil Senator Timmy Dooley, a potentially unfit person to represent a chain of convenience stores as a commercial ambassador on the basis of her alleged views about immigration.
.@SPARIreland Kellie Harrington is entitled to her opinion on immigration & diversity, however Spar Ireland has a responsibility to communities across Ireland to clarify and demonstrate that it’s opinions and attitudes are very different to its ambassador. https://t.co/6NPFJAKul5
— Timmy Dooley (@timmydooley) March 28, 2023
There is, you see, a modern Test Act: Participation in Irish Public Life, at least at a respectable level, is still contingent – unofficially but in practice – on one’s willingness to publicly profess certain articles of faith. One must have an unshakable commitment to “diversity”, for example, whatever that means on a given day. In general, one must have the views of the dominant soft left, who dominate the Irish media and Irish politics, and be willing to profess them faithfully.
Kellie Harrington does not, it appears, hold those views. She has aired sceptical thoughts about immigration – linking it to crime in the case of France – and about transgender participation in women’s sports, once tweeting that she would be horrified to have to fight a biological male. It has been well established in Ireland that holding any views at all that are even mildly sceptical of immigration puts you in the basket they have designated “far right”. And as such, when she was asked about those views on Newstalk, it was a test, like the old oath repeated above.
Harrington was supposed to say that she had retweeted the thing about immigration thoughtlessly. She was supposed to say that she had since had many valuable conversations, and gone on a learning journey. Ideally, she would have said that she had recognised the dangers of online misinformation and the seductiveness of far right tropes in explaining what she now realises is a nuanced and sensitive topic. She would then have participated in a “grown up” conversation about how important it is to own one’s mistakes and learn from them, and what a good example she was setting. Had she done all of those things, she would now be reaping the rewards for it. She did not.
Instead, there are efforts, like those above by Senator Dooley, to make an example of her pour encourager les autres.
Because it is not, now about Kellie Harrington. That is the important thing to understand: She is of no personal significance to those who wish to see her suffer for failing the test act. The purpose of this controversy is to teach others what is required of them if they, in turn, wish to avoid controversy.
None of this is new, either: Some years ago the then-celebrated Traveller Actor John Connors made some rather intemperate remarks about the relationship between Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman, and LGBT activist Peter Tatchell. His concerns about the influence of Tatchell’s views on public policy was and is by no means confined to the fringes, but the objective of the controversy was to ensure that lessons were learned by others: Be careful what you say here, see what happened to Connors?
Celebrities are, of course, particularly vulnerable to this kind of treatment because of how relatively easy it is to hurt their careers: A few spooked sponsors here, a few outraged left wing movie producers there, and soon you’re talking about oblivion. Keeping the celebs in line is relatively easy, and immensely important – for those who dominate our culture recognise that celebrities have a reach that they, by themselves, do not.
Nobody really listens to Ivana Bacik, you see. Lots of people might listen to Kellie Harrington, or John Connors.
And thus, we have a modern Test Act: Sustained celebrity in Ireland, in the sporting or cultural worlds, is almost entirely dependent on passing the political tests that are consciously and openly set for you. Those in that world who are talented but refuse to take the tests are simply excluded: Kevin Sharkey is a good example of this.
The original test act, just like this modern one, had a simple animating origin: Fear.
Those who wrote it believed in popish plots all around them, ready to sweep across the Kingdoms and depose the liberties guaranteed by the Anglican Church. To them, Catholic plots were everywhere, and “popish agents” were constantly working to overthrow them.
In fact, if you go back and read some of those fears, they sound remarkably paranoid. And almost exactly like how Irish politicians and influencers talk, these days, about the “far right”.
Funny, that.